Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
13. To begin with, it is unreasonable to insist that the notion of
the subject one comes to us from the subject itself (which is one),
from the visible man, for instance, or from some other animal, or
even some stone. Evidently the visible man and the One are things
entirely different, which could not be identified[28]; otherwise,
our judgment would not be able (as it is) to predicate unity of the
non-man. Besides, as the judgment does not operate on emptiness for
the right side, and other such things, seeing a difference of position
when it tells us that an object is here, or there; likewise, it also
sees something when it says that an object is one; for it does not
experience there an affection that is vain, and it does not affirm
unity without some foundation. It cannot be believed that the judgment
says that an object is one because it sees that it is alone, and that
there is no other; for, while saying that there is no other, the
judgment implicitly asserts that the other is one. Further, the notions
of "other" and "different" are notions posterior to that of unity;
if the judgment did not rise to unity, it would not assert either
the "other" nor the "different"; when it affirms that an object is
alone, it says, "there is one only object"; and therefore predicates
unity before "only." Besides, the judgment which affirms is itself a
substantial (being) before affirming unity of some other (being); and
the (being) of which it speaks is one likewise before the judgment
either asserts or conceives anything about it. Thus (being) must be one
or many; if it be many, the one is necessarily anterior, since, when
the judgment asserts that plurality is present, it evidently asserts
that there is more than one; likewise, when it says that an army is
a multitude, it conceives of the soldiers as arranged in one single
corps. By this last example, it is plain that the judgment (in saying
one body), does not let the multitude remain multitude, and that it
thus reveals the existence of unity; for, whether by giving to the
multitude a unity which it does not possess, or by rapidly revealing
unity in the arrangement (which makes the body of the multitude), the
judgment reduces multitude to unity. It does not err here about unity,
any more than when it says of a building formed by a multitude of
stones that it is a unity; for, besides, a building is more unified
than an army.[29] If, further, unity inhere in a still higher degree in
that which is continuous, and in a degree still higher in what is not
divisible,[30] evidently that occurs only because the unity has a real
nature, and possesses existence; for there is no greater or less in
that which does not exist.
UNITY, THOUGH BY PARTICIPATION EXISTING IN SENSE-OBJECTS, IS
INTELLIGIBLE.
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